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My Goals for 2013

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Goals are interesting. They help motivate us, but can also defeat the very hope they point to. You can have 10 year goals, 5 year goals, fitness, business, and personal goals. I personally think goals over 2-3 years are a bit impractical. The speed at which the world moves is crazy, when you think about it. January 9th marks 6 years since Steve Jobs announced the iPhone, 10 years ago social media did not exist. The world is changing rapidly, and some of our old goal systems struggle to stay applicable.

So I’ve written down my goals for the 2013 in 2 ways. The first is the classic model, but I’ve kept the list pretty short. Many of them are big projects, and will require a lot of my free time. If I can finish all of them, I’ll be pleased. Honestly, some may spill in to 2014! I still need to deconstruct each goal, and fully see what is involved. Some goals may be cut, so I can work on the important ones, and do them well.

I also listed what I want to focus on, and what my words and mantras are for this year.

How can we differentiate between having a goal, a focus, and a mantra? Goals are important, and great ways to motivate ourselves. However, life is full of surprises, and despite my best efforts, some of these goals may not be possible, or I may have a very good reason to quit. In each of our goals, we have to face the Dip.

This is where we can strike a difference between having a goal, a focus, and a mantra. Here’s how:

Focus: A way of living or working in a certain way

Mantra: A short, repetitive phrase to center our mind & soul

The way of living I want to focus on, the mantras I will repeat, these will not change. Though I change jobs, my health declines, money increases and decreases, or people come and go, I can hold to these.

To pare down the essentials even more, I wrote a list of Simple Goals. Closer to a focus, a way of living, these Simple Goals bear repeating and remembering not simply for 2013, but for the rest of my life.

Do you want to make a 5 year plan? Go ahead. But I urge you to make simple goals, and focus on them. I believe you will find that as you take care of the simple, base things in your life, like working hard, being kind, generous, and loving, you’ll find your other goals will align with them.

But careful, they may change. In a good way.

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I like your simple approach. My mantra for 2013 is “to live today like I want to live tomorrow.” I spend too much time thinking about how I want to be instead of just taking today and doing what I need to do today.

Thanks Scott. My goals are progressing fairly well. The simple ones have been better, because they are better ways of living, and not just accomplishments to try and knock off. If anything, I may have too many up, or simply need to focus on one at a time.